Suicide
Squad
Harley
Quinn: "Love your perfume. What is that? The scent of death?"
Suicide
Squad is directed by David Ayer (End
of Watch, Sabotage, Fury) and stars Will Smith as Deadshot,
Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Joel Kinnaman as
Rick Flag, Jay Hernandez as El Diablo, Cara Delevingne as June
Moone/Enchantress, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc, Jai Courtney as
Boomerang, Karen Fukuhara as Katana, Adam Beach as Slipknot, Alain Chanoine as
Incubus, and Jared Leto as The Joker.
In this DC Universe film, government
agent Amanda Waller worries about a future Superman-ish threat that, instead of
doing good, could possibly wipe out the human race. She puts together a team of
bad guys from a high security prison consisting of: Deadshot, Harley Quinn,
Killer Croc, El Diablo, Katana, Captain Boomerang, Enchantress, and Slipknot.
She chooses these baddies because if anything goes wrong, the government can
just blame it on them, since they are already considered felons. Col. Rick Flag
leads this team of villains into an otherworldly battle against unknown
entities, all while The Joker tries to pull of some evil plans of his own.
Ha! This looks like my squad on regular Friday night!
I'm sorry. I think I lied in the
description of the movie. That's actually what the trailers make it seem to be,
but in reality, I was surprised/confused on what the plot actually was when I
saw Suicide Squad. I won't spoil
anything, that's for sure. All I want to say is that don't believe the trailer's
message on what the story is. Now to get back to the review. I am sadly disappointed
with the outcome of Suicide Squad.
Here's the thing: I love comic book movies and comic books in general, even if
I don't read all of the comic books that the movie is based on. I definitely
appreciate the characters that are in this film and I can see really cool
adventures that this team can go on, but in this interpretation of Suicide Squad, nothing, besides the
characters and some of the action, worked. If you've read my reviews before,
you know I'm a huge fan of the story of a movie. I want to be taken into a
world that makes me feel happy, or sad, or scared, or pumped. Suicide Squad does not really have that
compelling of a story and therefore lacks the emotional or gravitating energy a
superhero film needs. Unfortunately, I didn't really believe the motives for
most of the characters taking charge of the situation (Rick Flag's and Amanda
Waller's). I can already guess that most of you will say that the motive was to
get rid of the giant laser thing that was destroying everybody, but that's not
what the main motive is for most of these characters. It's...well...love, I
guess. Yeah, how sappy, right? It's just something that I don't want in a
superhero film, especially one in which the main characters are bad guys. On
top of poor plot, the editing is incredibly choppy to tell this story. It's
clear that there are scenes missing. Who knows? Those scenes may have made the
movie better in the long run. I'll also say that I am freaking frustrated with this
because Batman v Superman: Dawn of
Justice had scenes missing and they decided to release them in the Blu-ray
when they should've just released them in the theatrical release to start with.
Damn it, DC! I can't fault the story itself though, unless it was just
absolutely terribly bad, which it isn't entirely, but with the editing being an
equal, in terms of quality, to the story, that just makes it a double poop
fest. I don't know what I just said there, but all I know is that the
storytelling used in Suicide Squad is
crappy.
On the plus side of this below average
superhero movie, the superheroes/super villains are cool as hell. I enjoyed
each of them showing off their powers and/or skills that make them a force to
be reckoned with. However, not all of the characters are fleshed out equally.
There is more characterization and character arc with Deadshot, Harley Quinn,
and El Diablo. The other team members are kind of like secondary characters
that can be replaced with anybody as powerful as them. Having said that, it is
still a lot of fun to see these bad guys interact with each other. Suicide Squad has a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe, in that it doesn't take itself too
seriously and blends a good amount of humor into the script. For DC, this is a
huge step up from the dark and serious superhero movies we've seen lately. They
actually listened to their fans so kudos to them. I still can't help but
compare this movie to Guardians
though and how far more superior of a film Guardians
was because it was more focused on the team working together. I didn't really
see much of this except for the last battle scene, which, by the way, is
totally rushed and a huge let down for what I expected all of these
lunatic/violent/fantastical characters could do. I'll be the unpopular opinion
here, but I hope Suicide Squad get a
sequel because this team has so much potential. The potential is just wasted
here.
You've probably noticed that I haven't
spoken about The Joker yet....well just like Suicide Squad does, The Joker will just be shoved in my review just
to please fans. He didn't have much to offer here which is super sad because he
is THE definitive villain in all of DC. We all know by now that Jared Leto's
Joker is taking the iconic character to a different area. People are scared of
different because it leads us to think of the unknown. We're blind when it
comes to different. For the most part, I shockingly liked what Jared Leto did
with the iconic character. When watching, I was thrilled to see that he
delivered the same psychopath that we love with creative direction by the actor
himself (wardrobe, laugh, bits and pieces of his personality). So The Joker is
a positive, but like I said, he is almost like a character in the background
that just comes to stir s**t up every now and then. Nothing spectacular and
nothing memorable.
I'm upset that Suicide Squad director David Ayer decided to reshoot some material prior
to releasing this film. It was actually not even that long ago that the crew
did reshoots. I'm thinking that those reshoots screwed with the final product.
Anyways, we get what we get and the unfortunate truth is that Suicide Squad is a huge let down. For
all you DC fans, I love the characters. I think they could venture off into
some weird and fun territory that DC hasn't shown us yet, but for what we got,
this FILM is not too great. I stress the word "film" because this is a
film. It isn't just characters playing superheroes (even though that's what it
seems like). The story, editing, and most characterizations is not on par with
many other superhero team up movies that we've gotten in the past decade. I
just hope DC takes a long hard look at this film and corrects the early
mistakes that Justice League may have
to make it one of the best superhero movies ever...I can dream, can't I?
2.6/5
PRO
- The characters potential for future adventures and their interactions
- The Joker is cool (though not enough of him)
CON
- Plot is not compelling
- Incredibly choppy editing
- Few fleshed out characters
Suicide Squad is rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action
throughout, disturbing behavior, suggestive content and language
Click here to watch the trailer
Suicide Squad is in theaters everywhere now
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